Visit Estes Park Board emails to stay private

By Zach Clemens

Trail-Gazette

Posted:
05/18/2017 12:05:38 PM MDT

The Visit Estes Park Board discussed shared emails, speaking to the media and budget issues at their regular meeting on Tuesday, May 16.

The Board discussed emails between members and whether they should be published online. The was discussed because Board member Charlie Dickey had shared with Estes Park Mayor Todd Jirsa some recent emails Dickey had received from Board President Steve Kruger. Many of the Estes Park Town Board of Trustees and Mayor Jirsa's emails are published on the town website.

Minus Dickey, the majority of the Board agreed that having emails private would protect sensitive information. There is information shared among Board members that might be proprietary or sensitive financial information, said board member Lindsay Lansom.

With that agreement, the Board approved a motion at a vote of 4-1 to adopt a policy to not to share emails with the general public. Emails that are shared would have to be Board approved. Charlie Dickey was the one vote against, and stated that he was not going to follow along with the policy.

"[Having emails public] erodes the ability to share proprietary information," Ciani said. "We are not going to post every email."

Fogarty added that Visit Estes Park's strategy was very proprietary and other destination management organizations could easily acquire proprietary information if all Board emails were made public.

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A motion to approve Fogarty as the official spokesperson to the media was approved unanimously. Dickey questioned if this had been done in the past, and Lamson said it was the operating process for as long as he had been on the Board.

Fogarty discussed budgetary numbers with the Board, with a few Board members surprised by how much over budget the legal fund was. Fogarty explained this was because of attorney and court fees due to the organization's recent court proceedings and numerous Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) requests they had received.

Lansom expressed concern about how distracting "request after request" was, especially when a lot of them are asking for the same record.

"I think it was just a giant fishing expedition to smear this organization's name," Lansom said. "Just because you yell and stomp your feet doesn't mean you're right."

Childcare study

The Board also unanimously approved a donation of $5,000 to contribute to having a childcare needs assessment done for Estes Park. Assistant Town Administrator Travis Machalek attended the meeting to explain the study.

"We all understand that there is a lack of childcare in the Estes Valley and there are no institutionally licensed childcare providers," Machalek said. "But we need statistically valid information and this proposal before you would fund a childcare needs assessment so we have a statistically valid number on what our childcare looks like."

Machalek told the Board that the Town had received a number of other contributions and had raised $40,000 for the assessment already. He said an ideal timeframe would be to have the assessment completed by the end of this calendar year.

Meeting change

The Board passed a motion unanimously to hold their meetings once a month instead of twice. It was decided that the first Wednesday of each month at 1 p.m. would be their regular meeting, with reschedules if the need arose.

Board member Adam Shake suggested moving the Board meetings to the Town Hall, where they could be recorded and published online for greater transparency. The consensus among Board members was that it was a good idea and something to look into in the future.

Strategic plan

Mark Holdt, a consultant from Sage Consulting, was in attendance and has been working with the Board on their strategic plan for the future. There was a lot of discussion about where the Board should be spending their budget in the future: destination marketing or management. The majority of the current budget is spent on the marketing side with about 10 to 15 percent spent toward management Fogarty said. The Board will continue discussions on their future strategic plans.

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